¶Starship flies again. On Monday, Starship V2 took to the skies for a final flight. Ship 38 and a reflown Booster 15 checked off objectives throughout the flight, delivering the most convincing mission of Starship’s still nascent launch program. After a flawless liftoff, stage separation, and ascent to space, Ship 38 opened its payload bay and used its improved Pez dispenser to smoothly slide eight more Starlink V3 analogs out into vacuum. Ship 38 then performed a sealevel Raptor relight (this marked three successes in a row for this all-important capability) and then reentered the atmosphere before successfully performing a hard banking maneuver (here’s a video-derived flight path) that will be required for a future return to launch site—only just missing being fully on-camera for splashdown. (Ship will eventually fly just past the catch tower for safety and then come back in from the East, similar to how Booster approaches already.) Ship 38 featured “crunch wrap” to seal the gaps between tiles, which, on first look, seems to have performed admirably—little, if any, burn-through was visible on the livestream this time around, despite some leading-edge tiles being removed with only bare stainless steel underneath (this was also done to other sensitive areas like the fuel tanks to test the limits of the system). SpaceX’s tile manufacturing facility in Florida, the ‘Bakery,’ can now produce 1,000 tiles/day, with capability to ramp to 7,000 tiles/day (that’s just 2.64 days of production per 18,500-tile Starship heatshield). Starship V3 is up next for Flight 12. The upgraded rocket will feature the sleek and more powerful Raptor V3, docking adapters for prop transfer, a new built-in and reusable hot staging ring, and one fewer, but larger grid fins (which will also act as the catch points). V3 will launch from Pad 2, which begs the question of what happens to Pad 1 (it may be converted for further static fire tests or, knowing SpaceX, scrapped). |
|
 | Wright’s Law is based on Theodore Wright’s observation that every time aircraft production doubled, the labor time decreased by 20%: this was termed the industry’s “learning rate.” This law exactly predicted Flight 11’s launch on October 13th and often predicts rocket launch timelines with greater accuracy (~25 days) than the companies that build them. Wright’s Law predicts a Flight 12 in November next, but since Pad 2 is not ready, that date is unlikely. However, due to SpaceX’s production speed, when Pad 2 is complete, the company will likely have multiple V3 vehicles ready for launch, possibly maintaining the prediction’s current trend line. (Ariane 6 should also get a notable mention here, with a current learning rate of 50%.) Many other things also follow similar learning rates. Credit: Alex Szewczak |
|
The Orbital Index is made possible through generous sponsorship by:
  |
|
¶Blue Origin’s Project Oasis. Blue Origin has been excited about in-situ resource utilization on the Moon for a while, envisioning it as the gateway to advanced in-space manufacturing and, eventually, habitats. A few weeks back, they shared a progress update on Blue Alchemist, their NASA-funded research into using lunar regolith in situ to produce solar panels, oxygen (breathable and propellant-grade), and various metals, which passed its Critical Design Review ahead of a 2026 autonomous demonstration in a simulated lunar environment. Now Blue has announced Oasis-1, in collaboration with the national space agency of Luxembourg, as well as GOMSpace and ESRIC, also in Luxembourg. Oasis-1 will fly in an “ultra-low” lunar orbit, allowing its magnetometers, multispectral imager, and neutron spectrometer to “create the most detailed high-resolution maps to date of lunar water ice, Helium-3, radionuclides, rare earth elements, precious metals, and other materials crucial for humanity’s expansion into space.” Water is useful for drinking, growing food, and electrolysis into cryogenic fuels; Helium-3 is useful (in theory) for fusion and valuable on Earth for dilution refrigeration. The dual announcement carries with it the implication that further missions, moving from mapping to utilization, are forthcoming. |
|
Support Us› Orbital Index is made possible by readers like you. If you appreciate our writing, please support us with a monthly membership! |
|
| ¶News in brief. Juno may be dead—not from radiation, but from the absence of a new mission extension after the previous one expired at the end of September, and sadly, no one at NASA can confirm the spacecraft’s power status due to the ongoing government shutdown ● Stoke Space raised an impressive $510M Series D to continue developing Nova, their fully reusable rocket, set to launch for the first time next year—their total amount raised is now just shy of a billion ($990M) ● JPL is laying off another 11% of their workforce ● Blue Origin flew its 36th New Shepard flight ● ESA proposed buying a cargo flight to the ISS to meet common cost obligations (in recent years, they have supplied the European Service Module for Orion in lieu of direct ISS contribution) ● Blue Origin transported the New Glenn booster for NASA’s Escapade mission (c.f. Issue 337) to NASA Kennedy ahead of its launch toward Mars in early November ● Russia approved plans to ‘allow for the placement of advertising on spacecraft’ ● NASA installed the Artemis II Orion stage adapter onto SLS, which links the cryogenic propulsion stage to the Orion spacecraft and will deploy four 12U CubeSats on its way to the Moon ● Blue Origin won a $78.25M Space Force contract to build a new payload processing facility at Cape Canaveral that aims to service 16 missions per year ● Chinese company Space Pioneer raised $350 million as they close in on an orbital test of their (possibly reusable) Tianlong-3 rocket ● Orienspace, a Chinese commercial startup, conducted a successful second sea launch with its Gravity-1 rocket. |
|
 | Orienspace’s Gravity-1 solid rocket, lifting off from a launch service ship off the coast of Haiyang in Shandong province, China. |
|
|
